


Five Things That Surprise Matt About Mohinder (and One Thing That Surprises Them Both)

by Saathi1013



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Domesticity, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-27
Updated: 2007-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-05 11:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(see title)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things That Surprise Matt About Mohinder (and One Thing That Surprises Them Both)

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to speakersxblown for support and betawork, and thanks to all those who left lovely comments on the last fic.

((one))

India is primarily Hindu, which is why Mohinder won’t eat beef.   Apparently milk is ok, though he still sticks to soy for some things (chai, always, and some meals taste thin with the skim milk Matt brings home for Molly).   But there’s actually a strong Muslim population in India, too, and half of Mohinder’s family is of that faith. 

“It’s surprising the marriage was even allowed,” Mohinder commented one day, staring at the photograph of his parents, framed on one of the side tables.  It also explains why Mohinder’s mother hasn’t bothered too intently on marrying her son to some nice young girl, and didn’t (immediately) launch into a screaming jag when Mohinder explained their living situation.  She knew well enough about youthful, willful decision-making.   There had been some shouting, true, but it was mostly about Matt being Jewish.  Go figure.

Mohinder himself doesn’t seem to have kept either faith, though when he goes on about Destiny, Matt can always hear the side-echo of Mohinder’s thoughts clearly saying  _karma_  or  _dharma_  instead.  He  _namaste_ ’s with a winning smile to the Indian grandmother who parcels out his alien vegetables at the market, getting her flustered and chatty.  He will say  _insha’allah_  fervently when the Saudi neighbor downstairs expresses concern for Molly’s nightmares and a desire to have her stop screaming the building down in the middle of the night.  And yet, for all his habits and references, Mohinder never swears in those languages, never too-casually invokes Allah or any of the numerous  _devas_  at his disposal.

Even when Matt surprises him with their first kiss, his thoughts are in English. _OhthankGodinHeavenfinally!_

Perhaps, with two prickly families circling each other with wary conversation, Mohinder was simply raised to be cautiously, carefully unblasphemous in either language.

It’s a habit Matt idly wonders if he can break, sometimes.

 

((two))

Matt can beat Mohinder in Scrabble every other time they play.  Boggle has been unceremoniously banished from the house, for obvious reasons, but somehow Scrabble is ok, because a misspelling will kindly be pointed out, and the tiles can be moved.

Molly will break out the week’s vocabulary words, and Matt will do ‘blind’ trades with her for letters that just happen to work with the word in her mind.  She’ll pretend she doesn’t notice.  Meanwhile, Mohinder will fill up the board during the first few rounds with long strings of impossible consonants and vowels that the other two know better than to challenge, since they couldn’t pronounce them if they tried and would need to look them up online instead of in Molly’s tattered, abridged homework dictionary.  This gives Mohinder the beginning of the game, Molly the middle, and Matt cleans the floor with them both at the end, finding little connections between their bold displays that just so happen to take advantage of their high-scoring consonants and the boxed-in triple word score.

The night Matt used up the last of his tiles connecting Molly’s ‘segment’ with Mohinder’s ‘frequency’ to make ‘delinquent,’ he found himself the first target in what turned out to be a lengthy and vicious popcorn war.

Mohinder still had a kernel tangled in his hair that night.  Matt licked at his neck and tasted butter and salt.

 

((three))

Mohinder finds him beautiful. 

This will always,  _always_  surprise him.

 

((four))

Mohinder doesn’t mind when he looks at porn.  The first time he caught Matt lazily palming himself to a video, Mohinder just stood there for a long moment, absorbing what he saw with a puzzled frown, and then walked around Matt to look for himself.

His arm rested heavily on Matt’s shoulder as he stole the mouse and hit ‘play,’ his body leaning warmly along Matt’sback.  After a moment, he shifted to one side to make eye contact with Matt, and raised an eyebrow.

“Did you want to try that?”  Mohinder asked, all idle curiosity in his tone, but there was an amused glint in his eyes.

Matt burst into relieved laughter, then set the laptop aside to pull Mohinder down.

 

((five))

Mohinder doesn’t get jealous.  While Matt simmered in a resentful sulk for a week after Mira visits, all dark-eyed longing and quick intellect, Mohinder doesn’t even blink at the divorcees that treat Matt like catnip at parent-teacher nights and recitals.

Not that Mohinder doesn’t have his own admirers, but somehow he removes himself from their attempts to ensnare with a distracted charm. He inevitably winds up by the wall, deep in conversation with the two science teachers, who are desperately glad to have someone present (aside from each other) who shares their interests. 

Meanwhile, Matt is stuck with two newly-single mothers who are enthralled with how  _safe_  and  _stable_  and  _nurturing_  he is, with a steady job as a cop and a willingness to adopt a daughter for no reason other than she needed him.  He almost wants to tell them that it’s not exactly what they think – because he  _knows_  exactly what they think, whenever he wants to – but stops himself just in time. 

They’d probably  _love_  it.  That fucking Mel Gibson movie.

 

((one))

Mohinder sings along with Bollywood movie soundtracks when he cooks.  It makes him bounce on his heels a little while stirring, and adds an extra twist to his steps when he has to move from one counter to another.

It is, of course, irresistible, and Matt sidles up next to him to loop his arms around that flexing waist and clumsily bop along with the beat.  They wind up laughing, and kissing, and are surprised when Molly comes out of her room.

“Ew,” she says, her face scrunched up.  They both freeze.  “Parents are  _so_  gross.”

They somehow manage not react to this this, though Matt can feel amusement trembling in the other man’s chest. Mohinder disentangles himself to see what question Molly has about her homework while Matt keeps an eye on the sauce.  
  
\- END -

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story; I am updating my archive here for completion.


End file.
